Either An Idiot Or A Genius

John 6, the feeding of the five thousand. I’m reading it and trying to picture the scene. Jesus has been teaching a huge crowd, and now their hungry. He’s got a trick up his sleeve, so he calls a brainstorming session.
“Philip, where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?” I’ll bet Philip wasn’t happy to have been called on right then.
“Uh… we don’t have the money to give each of these folks a snack, let alone a meal.” And then Andrew butts in. I’ll bet Andrew and Peter’s mother had a blast raising those kids.
“Hey, there’s this kid here. He brought his lunchbox. It won’t feed everybody.” Thanks, idiot. Seriously- why would he even bring that up? It’s the equivalent of offering a slingshot to an army that’s just run out of ammo. Congratulations, Andrew- you get the Unhelpful Award for this week.

I have to wonder if Andrew was taking a page from yesterday’s post on imagination. I mean, it’s possible that he really was an idiot, but he had already seen Jesus turn water into wine, heal some folks, and drive some demons out. I think its more likely that he had no idea what was going on, but that he believed Jesus was going to pull a big one. He was just trying to get the ball rolling.

Not to compare one Christ’s apostles to the Queen of Hearts, but I think this interaction is interesting:

“There is no use trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)

I admire Andrew for this. The guy just took a flying leap into absurdity and landed on solid ground. I think we could learn from him. I know I can.